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Fringe science

Fringe science refers to ideas whose attributes include being highly speculative or relying on premises already refuted.[1] Fringe science theories are often advanced by people who have no traditional academic science background, or by researchers outside the mainstream discipline.[2]: 58 [3] The general public has difficulty distinguishing between science and its imitators,[2]: 173  and in some cases, a "yearning to believe or a generalized suspicion of experts is a very potent incentive to accepting pseudoscientific claims".[2]: 176 

The term "fringe science" covers everything from novel hypotheses, which can be tested utilizing the scientific method to wild ad hoc hypotheses and mumbo jumbo. This has resulted in a tendency to dismiss all fringe science as the domain of pseudoscientists, hobbyists, and quacks.[4]


A concept that was once accepted by the mainstream scientific community may become fringe science because of a later evaluation of previous research.[5] For example, focal infection theory, which held that focal infections of the tonsils or teeth are a primary cause of systemic disease, was once considered to be medical fact. It has since been dismissed because of a lack of evidence.

Examples[edit]

Historical[edit]

Some historical ideas that are considered to have been refuted by mainstream science are:

(a book by Michael Brooks)

13 Things That Don't Make Sense

(a book by Thomas S. Kuhn)

The Structure of Scientific Revolutions

(1990). The politics and morality of deviance: moral panics, drug abuse, deviant science, and reversed stigmatization. SUNY series in deviance and social control. Albany: State University of New York Press. OCLC 19128625.

Ben-Yehuda, Nachman

Brante, Thomas; Fuller, Steve; Lynch, William (1993). Controversial science: from content to contention. Albany, New York: State University of New York Press.  26096166.

OCLC

Brooks, M.

Brown, George E. Jr. (23 October 1996). Environmental science under siege: fringe science and the 104th Congress. Washington, D.C.: Democratic Caucus of the Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives.  57343997.

OCLC

Cooke, R. M. (1991). . New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-506465-8. OCLC 22710786.

Experts in uncertainty: opinion and subjective probability in science

Archived 2014-03-16 at the Wayback Machine—Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

CSICOP On-line: Scientifically Investigating Paranormal and Fringe Science Claims

de Jager, Cornelis (March 1990). "Science, fringe science and pseudo-science". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 31 (1): 31–45. :1990QJRAS..31...31D. ISSN 0035-8738.

Bibcode

Dutch, Steven I. (January 1982). "Notes on the nature of fringe science". Journal of Geological Education. 30 (1): 6–13. :1982JGeoE..30....6D. doi:10.5408/0022-1368-30.1.6. ISSN 0022-1368. OCLC 92686827.

Bibcode

Frazier, Kendrick (1981). Paranormal borderlands of science. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus Books.  0-87975-148-7. OCLC 251487947.

ISBN

(February 1995). At the Fringes of Science. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press. ISBN 0-8133-2200-6. OCLC 31046052.

Friedlander, Michael W.

Friedman, Sharon M; Dunwoody, Sharon; Rogers, Carol L, eds. (1998). . Mahwah, New Jersey; London: Lawrence Erlbaum. ISBN 0-8058-2727-7. OCLC 263560777.

Communicating uncertainty: Media coverage of new and controversial science

Mauskopf, SH (1979). The reception of unconventional science. Boulder, Colorado: Westview Press.  0-89158-297-5. OCLC 4495634.

ISBN

Mousseau, Marie-Catherine (2003). (PDF). Journal of Scientific Exploration. 17 (2): 271–282. ISSN 0892-3310. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2009-11-27.

"Parapsychology: Science or Pseudo-Science?"

(1998). "The Perspective of Anomalistics". Anomalistics. Center for Scientific Anomalies Research. Archived from the original on February 6, 2009. Retrieved 2009-04-14.

Truzzi, Marcello

Media related to Fringe science at Wikimedia Commons